


Cock on the Right

by sanguinity



Series: The Hornblowers' To Command [1]
Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: A Sweet Fluffy Candy Coating, Angst, F/M, M/M, Multi, Rosas Bay, Tattoos, Whump, Wrapped Around a Center of Pain and Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 07:36:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20702294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: Pig on the knee, safety at sea.Cock on the right, never beaten in a fight.For as long as he bears them, Bush's tattoos protect him faithfully.





	Cock on the Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ColebaltBlue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColebaltBlue/gifts).

> For ColebaltBlue's prompt, "Bush's tattoos." Mind the tags, please.

Will rides easily at anchor, his head resting in Maria’s lap while she pets her fingers through his hair. Her touch is warm and gentle, filled with a softness that he has never known at sea and only seldom on land, not since he was a boy at home with his sisters. He deserves no such gentleness, not after what he has done to her husband and his captain, but Hornblower and his lady were both insistent — _come lie here, Will, and be still; do as my wife says, Bush _— and he did not have the capacity to resist them.

“Why a rooster, Will?” Maria asks.

It takes Will a long time to come back from his quiet mooring. She continues to pet him, and the question rolls gently in his mind. Slowly he understands that she’s asking about the fighting cock on his right foot, tattooed in gunpowder, its wings spread threateningly, its spurs sharp and wicked.

“Cock on the right, never beaten in a fight,” he recites.

“Would that it were as easy as a tattoo,” Hornblower scoffs, his voice wrecked from the violence Bush has wrought on him. His head is also in his wife’s lap, mere inches from Bush’s.

They both ignore his skepticism.

“And the pig?” Maria asks. 

The pig is on Will’s left knee, fat and happy and good luck against drowning. He should feel ashamed of his nakedness, but after the depravities he has assisted Maria in committing against her husband tonight, his nakedness seems like an inconsequential thing.

He rubs his face into her skirts. “Pig on the knee, safety at sea.”

Hornblower gives a derisive snort.

“They’re good protection, sir,” Bush says stubbornly. Hornblower doesn’t believe in the traditions of the sea, the rites and rituals that fend off bad luck and entice good fortune. It is one of Bush’s few complaints in serving under him.

“You’d do better to learn to swim,” Hornblower rasps.

“Do you not know how to swim, Will?” Maria asks, her fingers not quite as soothing as before. Then, not giving Will a chance to answer, “Do _you, _Horry?”

“Well enough,” Hornblower croaks.

“Will?” she asks again, insistent, and Will shakes his head against her thigh.

Not that it is of consequence. He has seen good swimmers drown, exhausted by the cold, dragged under by the tide, battered by flotsam, beaten by the surf. And that was when shore and boats were near. To be lost overboard, far from shore… In such ill-fortune, knowing how to swim would only ensure a cruelly prolonged death. Swimming is no proof against drowning, not at sea.

“You should know how to swim,” she insists. “Horry, you’ll teach him how to swim, won’t you?” She shakes her husband’s shoulder. _“Horry.”_

Hornblower attempts to clear his throat, but ends up coughing, instead. “Maria,” he says when he recovers himself, and Will winces to hear Hornblower’s voice crack. “He’s my lieutenant. It’s hardly fitting—”

“Horry, this is _Will,” _she insists. “You both live at _sea. _He needs to know how to swim.”

“Maria, please, it’s of no matter,” Will tries to soothe her, clasping her knee. “Better to stay safe aboard than to test one’s luck swimming.”

“Horry,” she orders, not accepting Will’s answer. There is a sternness in her voice, one that Will has come to recognise. Hornblower is silent for a long minute, but Will is an experienced officer, well-attuned to his captain’s moods, and he can hear what’s coming.

“Sir,” he protests. “There’s no need—”

“I’ll see to it he learns to swim,” Hornblower rasps, and Will allows himself a groan, turning his face into Maria’s leg. Now that Hornblower has said it, he will hold himself to it. Will can already feel the coldness of the water, the thrashing panic of attempting not to drown. He trusts Hornblower with his life — Hornblower holds all their lives in his hands daily — and Bush knows that Hornblower would never let him drown accidentally. Instead, lessons will be the painful torture of being held on the edge of drowning, cruelly prolonged for hours.

“There now,” Maria says, her voice full of satisfaction. She rubs Will’s shoulder comfortingly. “You’ll thank me someday.”

“I should have taught you in Kingston,” Hornblower says, and there’s something like remorse in his voice. “The water would have been warmer.”

Bush snorts at the ludicrousness of that. They had spent their leave in a blur of revelry, whoring and gambling, often too drunk to stand. “In Kingston? I would have drowned for sure, sir.”

Hornblower laughs, before the laughter breaks off into coughing. “With that squealer on your leg?” he croaks, when he has recovered. “Surely not.”

Despite Hornblower’s skepticism, both tattoos have served Bush exactly as they ought — _safety at sea, never beaten in a fight _— protecting him faithfully in the hazards of his profession. Under Hornblower’s ruthless and sadistic tutelage, Bush duly learned a clumsy swimming stroke, but the pig on his knee fortunately prevented him from ever needing the art. Meanwhile, the fighting cock on his foot safeguarded Bush from wharfside brawls to Trafalgar. During shore actions and ship-to-ship duels, the light musketry and heavy guns thundered all around, striking other men down, but never William Bush.

Until the day it all went to hell, a shot from a towering French three-decker removing the fighting cock wholesale, as neatly as if it had never been, and its protection with it. From that moment, Bush understood how this battle must end.

The three-decker loomed on the port side, her sister two-decker on the starboard, their combined broadsides pummeling the _Sutherland _to pieces. Even with the _Sutherland _slowly sinking beneath them, Bush’s hard-fought skill in swimming was useless with his foot gone. Maria flashed through his mind — her warm thigh beneath his cheek, her gentle fingers in his hair, her misplaced concern for his inability to swim.

Rude hands seized him.

“Leave me on deck! Let go of me, you scurvy dogs!” Bush fought against the hands that attempted to carry him below. He would not choose a prolonged death in the orlop, nor would he leave Hornblower to face the end alone.

But Hornblower, ruthless and sadistic, his voice wrecked and croaking, ordered Bush taken away. Bush had no capacity to resist him, not with the fighting cock and his foot both gone. Over his protestations, he was carried below and roughly placed on the pushed-together sea-chests that served as the surgeon’s table. Even down here, below the waterline and among the cries of the wounded, the three-decker’s guns rumbled ominously.

_“Why a rooster, Will?” _Maria asks, her thigh soft under Will’s cheek. Hornblower is nearby, his head pillowed on her other knee, his voice wrecked and croaking. _“Why the pig?” _The surgeon picks up his saw, and Maria pets Will’s hair, her touch warm and gentle, filled with a softness Will has seldom known on land, and never known at sea.


End file.
